Work, guts, faith equal a business

Running a business in downtown Worcester, some will tell you, is like jumping train tracks. It is a hazardous pastime, maybe not to life or limb, but certainly to one’s financial well-being.

Keivan Mizrahi, manager of Viva Bene Italian Ristorante at 144 Commercial St., can attest to this, but he probably won’t because he is the kind of guy who always tries to find the silver lining in a dark cloud.

How much worse can it get than to have the Department of Revenue, as it did last month, tacking posters on his restaurant’s door, announcing they were shutting him down for non-payment of taxes?

Given the shaky economy, PR like that is like being kicked when you are down, yet Mr. Mizrahi, who resolved the issue (he calls it miscommunication) with DOR within a day, took it in stride.

“Well, the DOR noticed how hard we were working here and decided to give us a day off. I thank them for that,” he explained jokingly when asked about it.

In reality, his little dustup with the DOR is perhaps the easiest of the challenges he has faced during the past 20 years running a downtown business.

Much has been written about the many manifestations of the city’s downtown, but for every idea hatched and scuttled at City Hall, there are probably dozens of entrepreneurs who have gone along for the ride.

The difference is that Mr. Mizrahi has persevered in a location where many others have given up.

“He is a warrior,” acknowledged City Councilor Rick Rushton, chairman of the city’s economic development subcommittee. “Certain people saw the vision and wanted to jump on what was coming, saw us moving from a dormant to vibrant downtown. Progress takes longer than we think, but those who stick with it will be rewarded.”

If anyone deserves to be rewarded for having patience and trust in city government, it would be Mr. Mizrahi.

When he opened Shorahs, the predecessor to Viva Bene, in 1993 at Foster and Commercial streets, he could have been excused if he thought he had hit the jackpot. Billy Joel played the Centrum the first two nights he opened, and he was busy from the patronage of those who had attended the shows.

But business eventually went quiet, and Mr. Mizrahi had to look for more creative ways to survive, such as offering special dinner and entertainment packages for people attending shows at The Hanover Theatre, or at other downtown venues.

He was forced to move in 2004, when the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences secured the Foster Street property as part of another City Hall promised downtown renaissance.

In addition to the college’s renovation efforts on Foster Street, the city told Mr. Mizrahi that help was coming in several other projects it was pushing, including plans to raze the Worcester Common Outlets mall, to construct a 200-room hotel on Worcester Center Boulevard, and to construct a new courthouse on Main Street.

To the city’s credit, almost everything promised in 2004 has come or seems to be coming to fruition. Still, according to Mr. Rushton, Worcester is about 2-1/2 years away from hitting its stride.

That might be the case, but as always Mr. Mizrahi continues to be creative while he waits.

Viva Bene accommodates functions, puts on comedy shows every Saturday (if you haven’t seen Frank Foley’s comedy act, you are missing out), and a jazz series the last Friday of every month. In addition to his standard fine dining menu, he is redoing lunches to cater to downtown office workers and is providing bar menus that are more “wallet-friendly.”

“You can’t sit still,” he said. “You constantly have to come up with good ideas. It might sound cliché, but really you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

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